


perfectly fine

by TuesdayTerrible



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 16:07:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14288553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TuesdayTerrible/pseuds/TuesdayTerrible
Summary: He feels like a satellite hovering their earth- watching without a hope at ever belonging among them./Or where Nagachika Hideyoshi is perfectly fine, thanks for asking.





	perfectly fine

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I love Hide so much and his ability to endure the pain he must feel is both admirable as fuck and devastatingly heart breaking. 
> 
> He deserves so much more than he's ever going to get.

 

When Hide is alone in his apartment, sometimes he forgets for a moment. It's not like the scars mutilating his face and branding his clavicle stay burned into the forefront of his mind. He doesn't even have much feeling there- he adjusts like anyone does with some difficulty and a gaping feeling of wrongness. But then he'll catch his reflection in the mirror, the dish he's washing. Sometimes he'll swallow and feel the artificial voice box bob unpleasantly in his throat.

 

Sometimes Nagachika Hideyoshi is really not okay.

 

But no one's around to notice, and that's perfectly okay.

 

It's perfectly fine.

 

.

 

Hide has lunch with Amon and takes walks with Ukie. He buys coffee for Touka and contributes in all that he does- with everyone that he does it with. He watches Kaneki- as always- even now from a distance.

 

Hide isnt a fool. He can see how Kaneki looks at him now. He knows what it means.

 

When Hide unlocks his front door and slides his bandanna off, he finds himself sighing, hand trembling slightly. He proceeds to make himself dinner and when his phone rings- Kaneki's face lighting up the screen, a dark haired boy who no longer exists- Hide ignores the sting that pierces his chest and sputters out a “Did you miss my voice so terribly KanEki?”

 

Neither of them are cruel enough to mention that it's not his voice. Not really. That just like Kaneki, that version of Hide is also dead.

 

.

 

He fell in love with Kaneki before he had even introduced himself.

 

See, Hide was a talker, he was outgoing and didn't have a shy bone in his body. But more so than that, he was an observer. Hide had friends. It hadn't taken him long to make them.

 

But it was shallow. It was so shallow, despite everything found himself a little disgusted. Sure, it was nice. Sure they were fun, but he could never shake the feeling as if they were all just waiting for the other person to stop talking just so another could start. Each person desperate to demand their attention, to stomp their mark into the earth and all around- those it bothered be damned.

 

But not that boy.

 

Not the boy with dark hair and a shy smile as he lovingly thumbed through pages of books. Not the boy whom people taunted and teased, behind his back and to his face. This boy stood still and quiet. He wasn't a ripple in the pond like Hide...he was the pond.

 

Hide envied him. So when Hide gets the nerve to approach him, smiling sheepishly, scratching lightly on the side of his cheek claiming he just moved here and didn't have any friends, he hopes beyond hope that he accepts him.

 

And when Kaneki Ken wraps his fingers around his and smiles kindly at him.

 

Hide knows.

 

.

 

“You're the person who means the most to eye patch right?”

 

Hide smiles, a small tight, broken kind of thing. Kaneki's heart isn't small enough to have a most. Kaneki's heart is big, and he's able to add more humans and ghouls into it every day. Kaneki's heart is nothing like Hide's. Hide's heart never had room for anyone else. It never wanted to.

 

It's a twitch, something he isn't even aware of, his finger grazing the left cheek above his bandanna.

 

“Yes.” he says.

 

.

 

The first time Hide tries to initiate doing something he fails terribly. In fact, he fails the first three times. The shy boy grasping his chin before agreeing to go play kick ball, watch a horror film, and audition for a play.

 

It's after the audition that Hide sighs head in hands.

 

“I'm sorry.” He says lamely as he stares at Kaneki. The dark-haired boy stares at him confused tilting his head to the side just slightly. Hide sighs again extending arms behind his head before continuing. “You didn't want to do any of these things the last few days.”

 

“I-” Kaneki starts chin in hand when Hide looks up at him defiantly. “Don't lie to me.”

 

Kaneki pauses before lowering himself down to sit beside Hide.

 

“I didn't.” Kaneki admits softly. “But I'm glad I did them.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because....I like spending time with you Hide. Your...your my best friend.”

 

Kaneki's smile, Hide decides- is better than anything.

 

.

 

Hide has a knack for noticing things other people don't, it has a tendency to make humans and ghouls rather predictable. So when he's kidnapped due to his answer- it's exactly as he planned. He isnt perturbed at all by the long nosed mask that hovers in his peripheral.

 

This is Akira's section and he knows they had planned to raid this area, in roughly 45 minutes. Hide had purposefully chose to assist in manipulating this particularly nasty ghoul to choose here with the delusion of eating Kaneki. It had been child's play.

 

The fact that he has a sick fascination with his face- well- Hide can deal with that too as the ghoul traces trembling fingers against the hole in his face.

 

“Do you remember the pain?” He says inserting his finger into the hole, to the point Hideyoshi can feel the ridges of the ghoul's index finger against the flat of his tongue. He tastes like dirt and blood, and it's completely fine.

 

“Does it still hurt?” He whispers hot against Hide's ear and he feels the shudder crawl up his spine, though he doesn't move.

 

Hide doesn't say he can remember the squelch his flesh made when Kaneki sank his teeth into him. He doesn't say that his blood was warm running down his neck. He doesn't say that, sometimes, he still feels blood pouring down onto his chest in streams.

 

Instead, he lifts his head towards him, the corners of his mutilated face twitching up into a smile that looks more like a grimace and says “Only when I smile.”

 

The ghoul laughs, a humorless deep sound and Hide finds the knot in his chest loosening just a little bit.

 

.

 

Hide is sitting in Touka's cafe, hands wrapped around his cup though he has yet to touch it. She stares at him, frown tugging at her lips as she takes a seat down across from him. It's almost closing time, but he's not paying attention to that watching the sun disappear into the earth.

 

“He's not avoiding you you know.”

 

Hide stares towards her unsure of what to do with her attempt at comfort.

 

“I know.” He says offering her a smile reflexively, despite the fact she cant see it. “He's not, not avoiding me though.”

 

He see's the twitch of her mouth and he can imagine the words that don't leave her lips.

 

_He just has a hard time looking at you Hide._

 

He feels like a satellite hovering their earth- watching without a hope at ever belonging among them. His heart bottoms out in his chest and his cup shatters across the coffee table, hot liquid stainging his hands and his shirt.

 

Touka moves quickly, broom already in hand before Hide moves to his knees to pick up the broken glass littering the floor.

 

“I've got it.” She says sharply, her gaze softening as she stares at his shaking fingers. “Hey...are you okay?”

 

“I'm fine.” Hide says scratching at his cheek just above his bandanna. “Never woulda pegged myself as the clumsy type when talking to a cute girl.”

 

“Shut up.” Touka says rolling her eyes as she takes the shards from his hand and places them in the dust pan.

 

_So this is what suicidal feels like_ Hide thinks as he apologies for the mess and wishes Touka goodnight.

 

.

 

The fact that Kaneki shows up momentarily before Akira does is more than a little unfortunate. It's not like Hide had planned to have his best friend literally fall through the ceiling of the building he was being fingered in the face in.

 

Quite Awkward.

 

But more so than that it's the look that flashes through Kaneki's red eye that disturbs Hide. Hide has seen that eye up close and very personal, nearly rolling in his head in ecstasy, in hunger. It's different now- the pain that bleeds through at the scene in front of him.

 

“Ayyyy” Hide says trying to defuse the tension that has coiled in Kanekis body. “The King of Ghouls in the flesh.”

 

The ghoul behind him laughs again. “I had planned to let this one go when you showed up.” He said nudging Hide affectionately, the pads of his fingers brushing the roof of Hide's mouth through the hole in his cheeks.

 

God now that felt terrible.

 

“But I kinda like this one. Might wanna take a bite out of him too. Kinda salty I'm guessing by the things that can come out of his mouth. Tell me- Centipede- did he scream a lot when you did this to his face? Does staring at it make you as hungry as it makes me? I think he must be good...considering you kept him alive for more.”

 

If Hide had teeth on that side of his mouth he would have bit him.

 

But the more pressing issue was the way Kaneki was staring, frame shaking, kagune twitching. Hide couldn't tell if he was a minute away from breaking down or breaking them both to pieces. And then there was the CCG to consider...

 

It wasnt until Hide heard Kaneki's knuckle crack sickeningly loudly in the abandoned space that he felt the adrenaline of fear pool in his stomach.

 

.

 

“I wish you wouldn't do this.” Hide says as hes stares towards Kaneki. “Not everything is your responsibility. It be easier for me to help you if you....stopped acting on your own.”

 

“You should...have lived a normal life Hide. I'm sorry how badly I fucked that up for you. But you don't need to...continue doing this.”

 

“You sound like you're breaking up with me.” Hide says forcing a laugh. He feels like he's dying. He wonders if it shows, in some crack on his face, some twitch of his hand. But it doesn't matter, because Kaneki's view is directed to the concrete city before them- not Hideyoshi at his back. “Unfortunate thing bout that 'neki is, you know as well as I do that I'm not going to stop doing this.”

 

“One day.” Kaneki says looking over his shoulder. “I'm going to hurt you so badly it's irreparable Hide.”

 

Looking back at it now Hide wonders if that had been a threat or a promise.

 

.

 

Sometimes when Hide is alone in his apartment he'll catch his reflection in the mirror, a dish he's cleaning. Sometimes he'll buy a bottle to make his belly warm and his mind blur and he can ignore the tiny trickle that will pour, if he drinks to quickly, out the right side of his face. Sometimes, if he drinks enough, he'll look just how he use to. And sometimes, if he drinks just a little more- so will Kaneki.

 

Sometimes Nagachika Hideyoshi is really not okay.

 

But no one's around to notice, and that's perfectly okay.

 

It's perfectly fine.

 


End file.
